Saturday, August 6, 2011

Theater Whore: Attack The Block

This is how its supposed to feel when you go to a theater. When you plop down however much it is you spend when you see a movie, you have an expectation to feel an emotion. Depending on what the film is you will feel joy, sadness, inspiration, fear, or horny. Maybe all at once in which case you need to see a doctor or go to church. This movie, Attack The Block, made me feel alive. That’s the only way I can truly describe it.

My boss had been urging me to see this for days and I kept putting it off. After a threat from him (you never take threats from Australians lightly!) I headed to The Arclight and saw this. The theater was actually quite full and I had a perfect seat in the center. Popcorn in one hand, large Coke in the other, goofy ass introduction from the staff, and its show time!

Spoilers are aplenty!
I’m going to break from the norm in terms of how I normally review films since this cast, except for Nick Frost (Paul, Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, Pirate Radio) is largely unknown. And by unknown I mean this is their first fucking film! Eat that, Super 8! You over-hyped, sanctimonious, big budgeted, high promise, low delivering piece of crap! Eat it! How’s that taste?! Too bad! Eat some more!

Sorry.

The premise, on paper, sounds very basic. City is attacked by invading aliens. Citizens fight back. Hooray for the human spirit. Fuck that. This film stars a bunch of kids that are criminals. Seriously. Fucking hoodlums in London that are barely old enough to shave. After robbing a woman something strikes a nearby vehicle. They investigate and one of them is attacked. He, Moses, gets pissed, and they chase after it, beating it to death. They literally parade the dead creature. Which is very ugly. Or as someone describes it “It’s like shit took a shit.”

More meteors crash in their neighborhood and instead of calling the cops these kids say “Fuck it. Let’s go whip some more of them!” which of course is the normal reaction. They find a crash site and realize this isn’t the same as the thing they killed so easily. Its fucking huge.

I am a bitch when it comes to how aliens look. Sometimes they can look silly (Cowboys And Aliens, War Of The Worlds). Sometimes they look too complex (Independence Day, The 5th Element). And sometimes they look perfect (Alien, District 9). This film is a take I have never seen before. The first alien they beat looked about average for an alien. Ugly, but nothing to shit your pants over. Maybe pee a little if it jumped out at you. Definitely sphincter clinching.

The big aliens they fight would make you shit yourself cross-eyed! They aren’t slimy. They aren’t quiet and sneaky. They aren’t here to take over the world even. They are big ass beasts that like to fuck shit up! They aren’t going to stand over you and growl. They rip throats out. What do they look like?

This.

“Why don’t you show more, Dante?” Because there is no more! Picture that with big ass hairy arms and body. There is no reasoning with that. It will chase you and rip your face off. That happens and it made someone in the theater gasp and me say “Holy shit!” That’s another thing. This was the first time in I don’t know how long I jumped during a film. You get so caught up in this movie and I believe it’s the fact that I didn’t know these people. These kids are new. There’s no stories in the tabloids about them. No past films that I’ve shit on. They are brand new and amazing. Every single kid in here did what people lied about the kids from Super 8 doing.

Attack The Block isn’t playing in many theaters here even though I live in Los Angeles which is supposed to be an entertainment capital of the world. Only one theater is playing it and that’s fucking sad because I would love for everyone of you to see it.